Increased arginine, lysine, and methionine levels can improve the performance, gut integrity and immune status of turkeys but the effect is interactive and depends on challenge conditions

Table 3 Selected immunological and redox parameters in the blood plasma of turkeys at 28 days of age

Parameter		N	Ig A [ng/mL]	Ig M [ng/mL]	Ig Y [ng/mL]	IL-6 [pg/mL]	IL-2 [pg/mL]	Cp [ng/mL]	Casp3 [ng/mL]	Casp8 [ng/mL]	OGG1 [ng/mL]	APEX1 [ng/mL]	8-OHdG [ng/mL]
Diet¹
Low ArgLysMet		24	2.457^a	2.759	2356.88	4.4	17.96	29.17	0.989	1.653	6.177	202.4	27.43^a
High ArgLysMet		24	2.216^b	2.669	2343.92	5.158	16.88	29.85	1.067	1.691	5.758	185.8	22.99^b
Challenge
No		16	2.399^a	2.741^a	2407.58^a	5.244	17.29	23.41^b	1.022	1.469	5.811	192.5^ab	34.40^a
C. perfringens		16	2.457^a	2.882^a	2406.39^a	5.098	19.96	36.43^a	1.039	1.874	5.997	220.8^a	21.64^b
LPS		16	2.153^b	2.520^b	2237.23^b	3.994	15	28.69^ab	1.023	1.672	6.095	169.1^b	19.58^b
Treatments²
Low ArgLysMet	No	8	2.403^a	2.891	2382.22	4.898	15.90^ab	23.94	1.012	1.32	6.138	217.6	37.49
Low ArgLysMet	C. perfringens	8	2.595^a	2.722	2394.5	4.723	13.49^ab	33.69	0.936	1.846	6.492	226.3	25.54
Low ArgLysMet	LPS	8	2.373^a	2.664	2293.92	3.58	24.48^a	29.86	1.02	1.792	5.903	163.4	19.24
High ArgLysMet	No	8	2.395^a	2.591	2432.95	5.591	18.69^ab	22.88	1.032	1.619	5.483	167.3	31.32
High ArgLysMet	C. perfringens	8	2.319^a	3.042	2418.28	5.474	26.44^a	39.16	1.143	1.903	5.503	215.3	17.73
High ArgLysMet	LPS	8	1.933^b	2.375	2180.53	4.408	5.51^b	27.51	1.027	1.551	6.288	174.7	19.93
SEM			0.041	0.041	21.686	0.252	1.688	1.665	0.029	0.078	0.195	8.572	1.469
P-value
Diet			0.001	0.115	0.728	0.13	0.707	0.824	0.181	0.803	0.294	0.31	0.049
Challenge			0.001	0.001	0.001	0.087	0.371	0.005	0.964	0.111	0.837	0.043	0.001
Diet × Challenge			0.025	0.001	0.164	0.994	0.001	0.541	0.295	0.365	0.343	0.304	0.253

¹Low ArgLysMet, diets with low arginine, lysine and methionine levels; High ArgLysMet, diets with high arginine, lysine and methionine levels.
²At 25, 26, and 27 days of age, birds were challenged either with C. perfringens type A strain 56 (C. perfringens) or lipopolysaccharide from Escherichia coli (LPS), or served as a placebo group with no challenge (No). ^a,bMeans within a row with different superscripts differ significantly (P < 0.05).

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